[Distutils] Backwards compatability: opinions?

[Fred L. Drake]

Christopher Petrilli writes:
 > Well, how about grabbing the fixed versions out of 1.5.2, shoving them
 > into a sub-package (Distutils.Fixed), and then just loading the correct
 > ones on startup?   I don't think there's anything in the 1.5.2 library

Christopher,
  Good idea, but not quite there yet.  It can't be a sub-package; they 
have to actually be on the standard sys.path.
  In Grail, some versions have included a directory "pythonlib" that
included updates to standard modules.  pythonlib was then added to
sys.path before everything else (along with the other Grail-specific
directories).  Perhaps the best approach is to add a directory
pythonlib within distutils, and distutils/__init__ can add it to
sys.path:

    import os, sys

    pythonlib = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "pythonlib")
    if os.path.isdir(pythonlib):
        sys.path.insert(0, pythonlib)

  This ensures that other standard modules that use the modules we're
providing updates for get the fixed versions.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	     <fdrake@acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives